It’s Halloween, so that means there has to be at least one or two scary items in this week’s link roundup.

Personally, the scariest thing I’ve encountered lately was the way I felt on Sunday morning after a late night at The Astor Room. Basically, I felt the way the creature in “The Thing” looks.

*shudder*

Moving on, here are this week’s links…

— I have to give credit to magician Rahat Hossain for pulling an impressive Halloween prank on his housemate. He spent a month using magic tricks and practical effects to make his housemate think their apartment was haunted, and recorded his building paranoia with secret cameras.

It’s the sort of trick that you have to appreciate even if you’re the victim, because it clearly took a lot of creative effort. Here’s the result:

— I love everything about this free, downloadable set of art that can be used to make your regular old Monopoly board game into Bioshock-themed celebration of the glory of Rapture. It even comes with printable money and title cards.

Interesting to note that Cohen’s Apartment and Fontaine’s Apartment are Boardwalk and Park Place, respectively.

— Everyone’s been asking me how I felt about Tim Tebow’s performance this weekend, and I’ll have more on that in its own post soon. Until then, I think that Dan Shanoff makes some great points in his analysis over at TimTeblog.com:

Tim Tebow isn’t owed fealty. He isn’t owed a free pass. No one will be tougher on Tebow’s performance today — not his worst media critic, not the folks on Twitter, not John Fox — than Tebow himself.

What he is owed is another half-season to develop, to get better — hey, maybe even finally get some play-calling that fits his style — before he is judged the worst QB in football or given up on.

. . .

It was a terrible game, on all fronts. Let’s see how Tebow responds next week before shivving him an hour after this week’s game.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m putting together some of my own thoughts on the Tebow hysterics, so keep an eye on the site for more on this subject.

— The good folks at Disney sent out a Halloween card that I just had to share with everyone. Like their other recent Muppets-themed parodies, it’s pretty hilarious and makes me that much more eager for “The Muppets” to hit theaters.

Buzzfeed has a gallery of 2011’s Most Offensive Halloween Costumes, and it contains the requisite amount of racism and age-inappropriate outfits. However, it also contains a photo depicting the one costume I thought I’d see more of this Halloween: Dead Steve Jobs.

– Also from Buzzfeed, here’s a helmet-cam video of one person’s experience in “Run for Your Lives,” the 5K race through the woods that features participants in full zombie makeup who try to chase after runners and steal their “brains” (flags attached to their body). It’s a great idea, and though I don’t think I’ll be joining the race — I prefer the barricade-and-shotgun method of zombie avoidance — I have a suspicion that I’ll be a spectator at some point.

It looks like… fun?

And there you have it, folks. This week’s links, served up with a side of Halloween terror.

Oh, and I’m posting some photos of this year’s jack o’lantern later tonight!

Bio

Rick Marshall is a professional geek, full-time journalist, occasional photographer, indentured servant to incestuous cats, unwilling party host, speedy talker, obsessive story collector, and most importantly, a dad. This is his personal blog.